At present, short message is a common data service in the 2G network. Short message is a connectionless service. The sending of a short message includes two independent processes of Mobile Originated (MO) and Mobile Terminated (MT).
With the increasing popularization of mobile phones and the flourishing development of short message service, short message-based services are increasing. At present, mobile operators expect to get, through a short message system, some statues of a user equipment, such as information on the Mobile Switching Center (MSC) to which the user equipment currently belongs, current power on/off state of the user equipment, and International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) or Mobile Identification Number (MIN) of the user equipment. Upon getting the information, various positioning services such as coarse positioning service, multimedia messaging service and value-added service can be available.
The short message service center may get user equipment information through a get routing message, so as to facilitate the internal processing of the short message service center. At present, the existing short message service center has already been provided with an interface with HLR. Through the short message service center, current state information of the user equipment such as MSC address, SGSN address, the power on/off state, IMSI and MIN may be got.
Taking the GSM network as an example, the processing is generally as follows: the Short Message Service Center (SMSC) sends a get routing message to the Home Location Register (HLR). The get routing message may be a Mobile Terminated Message (MT Deliver message). In this case, the message may be delivered to a mobile terminal, so as to get correct current state information of the mobile terminal. The get routing message may be only a SEND-ROUTING-INFOR-FOR-SM (SRI) message with a priority identifier, thereby getting current state information of the mobile terminal without sending the short message to the mobile terminal.
However, the existing short message service center has no open interface and can not provide the obtained current state information of the mobile terminal for a third party for use. In other words, at present, the third party service device can not get user equipment information through the short message service center to perform positioning service.
In addition, although MM5 (reference point between the Multimedia Messaging Server Center and HLR) is defined in the set of Multimedia Messaging protocol, no specific implementation is defined. In other words, in order to implement the multimedia messaging service, an additional positioning system is required.
Further, the user equipment position information can be got by positioning system at present. For example, in the CDMA network, two new network entities shall be added: Mobile Positioning Center (MPC) and Position Determining Entity (PDE). Meanwhile, HLR in the network needs upgrade so as to have the ability of data storage and user equipment position information delivery for user equipment positioning. In the process of positioning, the network first requests the home MPC for the position of a user equipment, the home MPC then gets the address of the serving MPC where the user equipment visits through HLR, and then the home MPC requests the serving MPC for the position of the user equipment. The serving MPC needs to request the mobile switching center serving the user equipment for radio information of the user equipment when it is getting the position information of the user equipment, then the serving MPC interacts with PDE, and the PDE calculates the position of the user equipment. However, such a positioning system is complex in positioning process, has relatively strict requirements in the signaling network, and signaling traffic in which is heavy; furthermore, additional devices are needed, resulting in an overmuch cost and a high risk of investment.